


In the Heat of the Blazing Mountain

by Moonlark



Category: Women's Soccer RPF
Genre: Assassins & Hitmen, F/F, Forest Fires, Minor Character Death, Pacific Northwest, lots of action
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-15
Updated: 2016-01-18
Packaged: 2018-05-05 04:26:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5361344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moonlark/pseuds/Moonlark
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"On the gravelly shoulder of this rain-slick road, a single car was stopped. It hunkered in the gravel like a bear against the storm, solid and squat and determined to stay until the rain stopped. A woman waited beside it, long brown hair soaked and hanging limply down her back, raincoat dripping miserably around her sodden tennis shoes. She was pacing back and forth, the length of the car, over and over again. Occasionally she pulled out a phone and checked something on the screen, keeping it as dry as she could, and then returned it to an inner pocket.</p><p>An owl called, solemn and low--ominous in its loneliness--and the trees continued their damp monk-like silence."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Rain on the Fir Trees

**Author's Note:**

> I have taken liberties with geography. The places mentioned here (Tiger Mountain State Forest, Mountain Loop Highway, Mount Forgotten, Devil's Peak, Deer Creek and Kelcema Lake) all exist, but not necessarily in the forms I portray them in. Then again, it's fiction, so...
> 
> I got the inspiration for this story while the Washington wildfires of the past summer were still burning bright. That's why it's set then, and why weather has so many mentions in the story.
> 
> Also, bonus points to you if you can find all the memes.

_Monday, September 7th, 2015_  
9:32 pm  
WA-18 alongside Tiger Mountain State Forest 

 

It was raining.

Fir trees bent heavy branches toward the ground, bowed beneath the weight of the storm and the wind. Wet pavement gleamed in the scant moonlight. A single soggy squirrel ventured out onto the asphalt, then thought better of it and scampered back to its hollow home in the dripping trees.

On the thin shoulder of this rain-slick road, a single car was stopped. It hunkered on the pavement like a bear against the storm, solid and squat and determined to stay until the rain stopped. A woman waited beside it, long brown hair soaked and hanging limply down her back, raincoat dripping miserably around her sodden tennis shoes. She was pacing back and forth, the length of the car, over and over again. Occasionally she pulled out a phone and checked something on the screen, keeping it as dry as she could, and then returned it to an inner pocket.

An owl called, solemn and low--ominous in its loneliness--and the trees continued their damp monk-like silence.

The woman stopped pacing, turning back toward the road. 

No cars in sight. Of course not. 

She cursed softly under her breath and kicked at the car's side.

It remained stubbornly unmoved.

The woman shivered a little, and glanced around. There was an unsettling feeling of malice nearby, a dark threat on this dark, wet, earthy night.

She muttered a curse under her breath again, resisting the tight, tempting urge to shout the words. In her opinion, curses were meant to be screamed--but some primordial instinct had grabbed her throat, and whispered shakily in her ear of the importance of quiet.

She leaned against the car, staring through the rain-dappled window at where her keys sat on the front seat. She stared with disappointment, with disgust, with the bitter thought that only she could be enough of a failure to lock her keys inside a broken-down car. She sighed at the hard words circling through her head, at the nervous shivers creeping down her spine, and at the cold and the dark and the rain.

She sighed and stared because she could not scream.

Her wait was interrupted by a faint buzzing from her pocket. She shifted, turning away from the rain, forming a little dry area in front of her. Out came her phone.

Incoming call.

She hit answer and held the phone up to her ear.

"Finally!" she said. "I was beginning to think I would be stuck here all night!"

"You still might be," the voice on the other end replied. "That's no way to get someone to come to your rescue, Hope. You need a little less salt and a bit more damsel-in-distress."

"Well, fuck you too, Pinoe," Hope said, and laughed at the hasty "Nope, no thanks, that's KO's job," that followed.

"So where are you? And why exactly do you need a ride?"

"On Route 18, the stretch by Tiger Mountain, you know where I mean? And my car broke down, and my keys are locked inside, and it's cold and dark and rainy out here. Is that reason enough?"

"Route 18? Did I hear you right?"

"Yeah."

"What are you doing out there? That's like... unnecessarily out of the way..."

Hope shrugged, willing her voice to remain steady. "I needed to take a drive."

There was a bit of silence from the line, and Hope could almost hear the resigned nod as Pinoe stopped the interrogation in favor of more practical questions. "Did you call Triple A?"

"Three times. Just got a dial tone."

"And no one's come by?"

"Not a single car. Besides, I'm wet enough most strangers probably wouldn't want me in their car."

There was an audible sigh. "Alright, I'll come. Can't have our goalie getting kidnapped or killed by some rando on this dark and stormy night."

"Shit, that's not gonna happen anyway," Hope laughed.

"Then what do you need me to come get you for?" Pinoe needled.

"Oh, well, there's a tiny little problem called pneumonia, and another one called hypothermia, and neither of them are very beneficial to a player's performance..."

"Okay, okay, I'll be there in about half an hour. I'm putting my shoes on now, see?"

"Thanks, Pinoe. My phone's getting wet, gotta go. Bye." Hope ended the call and returned her phone to the same inner pocket as before. She straightened up and flicked her sodden hair back away from her eyes, then sat on the railing at the side of the road and proceeded to stare absently at the forest.

Objectively, it really was a nice place. The trees were hung with wispy carpets of Spanish moss that dripped steadily on the undergrowth below. If she looked closely, she could see individual needles on the fir trees bend and shiver as the cold droplets struck them. The forest floor was covered in a sheet of moist green, rotting logs reclaimed by vines and bushes and maidenhair ferns, fertile ground to sow wild seeds in. Thick, shaggy rugs of various mosses clung to the rocks pointing up further away, before the darkness covered up the woods from her sight. 

A fat raindrop splatted on the tip of her nose, and she found herself laughing softly, tilting her face upward toward the sky. Normally, she liked the rain, and now that she knew she wouldn't be stuck out here all night, it was easy to enjoy the cold water on her face. It was almost peaceful, the wild night's calm marred only by the faint, prickly, tense sense of danger that refused to go away.

She opened her eyes and stared up at a gap in the clouds, through which the waning moon could be seen. There were other spaces in the clouds too, holes that opened up onto deep lakes of space dotted by lily-pad stars. Skies like this, where the stars or the sun still shone through--one of her childhood friends used to call them "God crying."

The rain began to fall in a steadier beat, and Hope looked down to keep the water from her eyes. The cadence of the drops played a shifting tune on the railing she sat on, and she found herself absorbed in watching patterns dance across shallow puddles. It was mesmerizing, and she lost track of time, pondering the rain and the night.

A sharp, piercing noise jerked her from her thoughts and made her jump up, spinning around to face the woods. She stood, trembling, on tiptoe as she strained to see through the shaded trees. Every muscle in her body was ready to spring into action, waiting for a threat to appear.

Just when she was beginning to wonder if she had imagined it, the noise came again, lower, rawer, drawn out and desperate. It came from somewhere in the woods--not straight in, though--further up the road. There was something very disturbing about it, about the way it was almost a scream, but with such a haunting, despairing quality that it sent a shiver down her spine.

"Spooky shit," she muttered, biting back a nervous laugh. "Not a good idea to go check it out, nope, shouldn't be doing this, just stay by the road and wait, don't go into the woods alone on a dark and stormy night..." she continued as she hopped over the railing and headed into the dripping trees. 

In the darkness of the forest, it was hard to tell where obstacles were rising from the moss-covered floor, and Hope became increasingly thankful that the rain had wet the loam. The absence of dry, crackly leaves made it a little easier for her to move quietly, and her instincts were still warning against loud sounds. 

A light blinked up ahead, and she froze. Okay. There was definitely someone out there. She didn't think she wanted to meet them. She slowed down, choosing her steps with utmost care, almost ready to indulge the terrified voice in the back of her head that told her to turn around, get back to the car, and get out of there.

Her eyes had adjusted to the shadows beneath the trees, and so a change in the darkness ahead warned her to stop. She halted, held her breath, and listened.

There were voices.

Okay, so more than one person. She still didn't want to meet them.  She eased forward until, still in the shadows, she could see clearly--and what she could see was shocking indeed.

The clearing ahead was actually a thin dirt service road, stretching back to Route 18 and on into the park. There were three men standing in the middle of the road, tall and sinister against the moonlight. They were gathered around a dark lump that lay on the packed dirt, limp and unmoving.

It took Hope a full five seconds to realize that the lump was another man.

"Can we just get on with it?" the tallest of the standing men said, sounding rather bored.

"Yeah, we've been here too long already," the shortest one agreed.

The third one shook his head. "Hush," he said, "I've been waiting for this for too long to rush it."

"We ain't rushin' it, man," the shorter one replied. "You just takin' more time than we got."

The tallest one sighed and nodded. "We can't spend all night here. We gotta be elsewhere tomorrow. You know, appointments to keep and all that."

"Hey," the third one growled, "you'll get where you need to go, okay?" He took three swaggering steps forward and squatted next to the fourth man. He grabbed a handful of hair and hauled the man upright.

"And you'll get just where I send you," he crooned into the man's ear.

The captive twitched away, but there was nowhere for him to go. His wrists were bound behind his back, coarse rope cutting into the skin, and rough strips of burlap were tied across his eyes and mouth, a blindfold and a gag. There were three vertical slashes running down the front of his exposed torso, and a constellation of stubbed cigarette burns spotted across his shoulders. A patch of flesh on his shoulder was blistered and swollen, scorched and seared by a crude metal brand.

Blood mixed with water on his bare skin and glistened in the moonlight. 

Involuntarily, Hope sucked in a deep breath, and then nearly gagged as the smell of charred flesh reached her. Somehow, it even smelled different from overcooked meat, almost as if she could tell the human quality of it just from its stench. She drew back behind the tree and closed her eyes tightly, trying to hold on to the shreds of calm that she'd been shrouded by just minutes before. 

However, a morbid, dark curiosity had taken root in her, and there was really nothing she could do except turn back toward the disturbing scene in the service road's clearing. She watched, feeling helpless, nauseated and awful, as a sharpened steel hunting knife gleamed against the night. 

There was only one direction that this could go in and make sense, and she was well aware of what that was. However, it still came as a gruesome shock when the blade was whipped across the captive man's unprotected throat. The man with the knife released him, and he slumped down in the mud, convulsing in a last desperate act of life. He tried to scream through the gag, but his vocal chords had been severed.

It was a full two minutes before the twitching and gurgling completely stopped.

"Well," the first man said, "you've got your revenge, what'll ya do now?"

The third one shrugged, walking back between the other two and opening a bag. He took out a rag and wiped his bloody hands and knife on it. "Oh, I don't know, hide the body? And after that, business as usual, I think. You?" He turned to the first one.

"We got other jobs to do, man. You got your revenge, we gonna get paid--our employer don't have to know that it wasn't either of us who actually did it, in the end. He's dead, that's what matters."

"Yeah, worked out great for all of us, right?" the third man said, fully facing the tallest one.

"Well, not for him," the tallest one said,  pointing at the dead man. They all laughed loudly, as if they no longer cared about their noise level, and then the shorter one pulled out a gun and shot the third man in the back of his head.

It was probably a good thing that the shot was so shocking, so jarring against the twisted, morbid joviality of the previous moment. Had she known or seen what was going to happen, Hope might have... well, she didn't know what she might have done--run for it, probably, and been heard, hunted down, and killed. As it was, she was frozen in place, skewered by silence, held still by horror and disbelief, confusion and fear.

"Well, that takes care of that," the taller one said, removing a tarp from the bag beside him and laying it out on the mud. "Two jobs in one."

"Almost a million each, lying right there on the ground," the second one grinned, stooping to grab the third guy's legs with gloved hands and moving the body onto the tarp. The accent that had colored his voice was gone, replaced by a soft "American" accent, hardly noticeable, yet strange in its bland neutrality. 

The tall one dragged the body of the last man over to the tarp as well, whistling a tuneless rendition of what might have been "Another One Bites the Dust", and suddenly Hope could move again. Carefully, she backed away from her hiding place until she was sure she could not be seen, and then turned and just barely kept herself from sprinting off, taking cautiously measured steps instead, so as not to rustle the loam.

About halfway back to the car, she stopped and took a moment to collect herself. Okay. So she'd just seen someone--a couple someones--die. Yes, it had been bloody. Yes, it had been horrible. Yes, she was still quite freaked. Actually, that was the understatement of the century. However, she could not afford to think about it--not yet, there would be time for that later, when she was out of these woods.

She took a couple deep breaths and swept the awful gurgling echoes in her ears under a mental rug, where they were quickly joined by the images of blood glinting in the night. She felt herself become numb beneath the trees and the rain. Then she started for the road again, walking as fast as she dared in the eerie dark.

When she reached the road a minute later, she broke out into a little run to where her car was sitting. She leaned against the driver's side door as if that semblance of being casual could disperse the danger that she knew was still out there. Her phone came out and she checked the time, glancing back at the woods as if a monster might appear if she turned away.

It had only been 18 minutes since she had ended the call with Pinoe. The woods didn't seem as beautiful as they had then, before the night was colored by carmine blood and the muted screams of a desperate man.

She had no idea how long exactly she'd been standing there--it could have been anywhere from thirty seconds to ten minutes--when she heard the sound of an engine approach from the north. It wouldn't be Pinoe, it was the wrong direction, but at that moment, Hope didn't really care who was coming as long as they could get her away from here.

A blue Ford pick-up rounded the bend and slowed as its headlights landed upon Hope. She supposed she had to look rather interesting, standing there like a drowned rat, beside a car that appeared to be fine and yet obviously wasn't. The pick-up slowed even more, before rolling to a stop next to her car, and she got a quick look inside the cab-- 

Shit.

The men in the truck were the same two she had seen earlier that night.

Before she could do something incredibly stupid that would dramatically decrease her odds of survival, like screaming or running, the passenger side window rolled down and the shorter of the two men asked, "Errythin' all righ', ma'am?" The accent was a completely new one. 

Hope plastered on her best pitiful face. "Yes, sir, sorry to bother you, but my car just went and died on me, and this rain is something awful--would it be at all possible for me to get a lift, maybe?"

The guy smiled broadly. "We c'n do yeh one better, ma'am. My brother here knows quite a bit abou' the inner workins o' an engine. Want 'im ter take a look at it?"

No sensible person would refuse that kind of assistance unless they had reason to be afraid. They couldn't know that she'd seen them, or she'd probably end up dead; therefore, she could not let them think she was afraid. "Oh, that's just perfect, thank you so much for your kindness," she said, and desperately wished for her acting to be good enough. 

"So c'n yeh tell us whut happened to this poor vehicle here?" the taller one asked, after parking the truck behind her car, swinging out of the cab and coming around to lean on the dirt-spattered hood.

"Well, I was just going for a little bit of a drive, because I was feeling stressed and it's a way to kind of get away from things, right? And it was raining, which is usually weather I like, so I figured it would be just right." Not what had really happened, but if she was playing talkative, slightly oblivious, rich white woman, it certainly fit. "So I was just driving along, when all of a sudden the engine started making this clanking noise and then the gas pedal kind of stopped working? Like it just cut out. And I had to pull over and stop, because you can't exactly drive without the gas. And I sat there for a little bit, cursing my luck, and then got out to see if it was something wrong with the engine or whatnot. Of course, I'm not a mechanic, I wouldn't really know what to do if I'd found something, but it was better than just sitting there. Only, when I got out, the door closed behind me, and my keys were still inside. So now I'm stuck out here, in the rain and the cold and the dark.

"This was about five minutes ago, maybe? And I called Triple A, but I didn't get anything. They just didn't pick up!" 

She glanced indignantly at the men in front of her. They both nodded, silently agreeing that not answering a call for roadside assistance was indeed the great travesty of the year. 

"Maybe I'll try again now," she added, taking careful mental notes on their reactions. They were both really good. A combination of nodding, coughing, and meaningless agreeable syllables showed a noncommittal support for her idea. She hoped that meant they wouldn't kill her. 

"Okay, while yeh is doin' that, we gonna take a look under yer hood, ma'am, if'n 'at's all righ' wit yeh?"

"Yeah, go ahead, if you can get it open. No keys, remember? But thank you very much for your efforts."

She gave one last half wave at them and then turned around and walked slowly across the road, fiddling with her phone. It would look strange, she knew, if she didn't call anyone, but she also knew that if they had even the slightest suspicion of her, they would shoot. If they thought she was calling 911, they wouldn't hesitate. 

The rain was pouring down now, dashing against her shivering hands as they fumbled with the phone--or no, her hands weren't shivering, they were shaking. Fear and adrenaline were mixing cocktails in her brain, and she could feel herself slipping a little. She couldn't afford that, not now. She didn't slip. It wasn't what she did, she couldn't, her instincts could only get her so far, never mind that they had kept her alive so far tonight--

 _MOVE!!!_ , her instincts screamed, and she threw herself over the metal railing a split second before a pair of bullets whizzed through the space where she had been standing. She hit the sloped ground on the other side awkwardly, jarring something in one of her wrists, but there was no time for that as she rolled down the bank and ducked into the bushes, scrambling away to the south. 

There was a bridge nearby, a collection of solid stone and metal arches that she knew was up ahead, even if she couldn't see it through the dark and the rain. Maybe she could use it as a hiding place--it was shelter, and no gun they had with them should be able to shoot through the construction of that thing. It was her best hope maybe, with the way her body was already complaining about the fall she'd taken, moaning about her wrist, or bruises she could tell were forming along the back of her ribcage, or a sharp stick that had scratched open her shin and filled the scrape with dirt. When the adrenaline in her system faded, she knew she'd be in for a bit of pain.

The bridge came up out of the darkness so suddenly that she almost ran into it, skidding in the mud and smooth creekside pebbles and nearly losing her balance. The creek was running fast, swollen with rainwater, and she had to be careful not to slip or splash as she crossed the partially submerged rocks to where the first stone support stood.

She hauled herself up the slippery support and wedged herself, crouching, between two rusting girders. It was cramped and awkward, and she quickly realized that her hiding place wasn’t good enough—too exposed to the near bank, too easily seen.

It took a great feat of physical exertion and altogether too much hanging upside down to scramble around to the other side of the pillar and perch on the narrow ledge where the rock supports turned to metal. However, it was much harder to see her from the near bank now. She could finally relax, if only a little bit.

A biting wind gusted up the creek for a few seconds before switching directions, and she shivered. It might not have been raining under the bridge, but it was still pretty cold, and her soaked coat wasn’t doing much good.

A clatter on the bank made her freeze and carefully peer out at the bank. Through the curtains of rain pouring down, she could just barely see two figures making their way up the bank of the swollen creek, away from her hiding place under the bridge. They passed around a curve and disappeared behind a bent, drooping hemlock.

Hope let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. Maybe she’d make it out of this after all. Then afterwards, once Pinoe had come to pick her up, she’d go to a police station and—

Wait.

Shit. Pinoe.

She pulled her phone from her pocket and sent a quick "Where are you?" off into the void.

The response was almost instant. _like, five minutes out. can you just wait that long?_

Well, shit.  ** _don't come any closer_**

_what? why?_

**_DON'T._ **

_shit, what happened?_

**_men with guns, call the police_ **

_fuck?!_

**_i saw them kill a couple people._ **

**_also, don't text and drive_ **

_is now really the time? and calling now, where are you exactly?_

_**i'm under the route 18 bridge for some creek, think it’s called holder.** _

_**get them here quickly, please** _

_will do_

_k_

She set her phone down on the stone beside her, and twisted to try to get a better look at the bank upstream. She could barely see anything through the rain--

"There she is!" 

There was a brief moment where everything seemed to freeze, and then a sharp crack rang out and an explosion of agony ripped through her arm. She yelped and jerked away, losing her purchase on the narrow ledge and falling into the dark current.

She spluttered as she surfaced, kicking her shoes off in an attempt to make swimming easier. Her left arm was screaming as she struggled to keep her head above the surface, and she could feel an abnormal warmth in the water around it. 

At least there aren't any sharks, she thought, and laughed to herself as she made the great effort of giving in and let the current take her away.

The cold water carried her a few hundred yards downstream, before delivering her to the gnarled grasp of a fallen tree which she grabbed onto. The chill quickly became unnoticeable, and the wound in her arm was numbed. If it had not been for the fear of imminent death, she felt she almost could have slept...

She stayed like that until the sirens came.


	2. In Fearful Terms

_Wednesday, September 9th, 2015_  
2:15 pm  
University of Washington Medical Center, 1959 NE Pacific St, Seattle

 

Kelley didn't think she'd ever crossed the country so fast in her entire life. 

As soon as she got the call saying Hope had been shot, she was on the Southwest website. The same-day flight to Seattle-Tacoma had cost enough that she was almost disturbed, but it was a choice she would make again in an instant. Her stomach had been churning, her heart in her throat, for nearly an entire day, and the closer she got, the more she worried about what was going to greet her. 

She gripped the fabric of her backpack tightly as the taxi took a sharp left and then screeched to a stop in front of the hospital. She thanked the driver and shoved some cash into their hand--more than enough for the fare, but they had gotten her there quickly. Then she was tumbling out and sprinting through the sliding glass doors of the hospital's main entrance.

She signed in at the front desk, and then hurried off toward the elevators. Fourth floor, room 427, the text from Pinoe had said. She hit the appropriate buttons and then stood back and wished that the elevator would move faster. 

Fourth floor-- _di_ _ng!_ \--the elevator doors slid open. She all but jumped out, glanced around, and accosted the nurse behind the nearby desk. The nurse pointed her down a hallway lined with plain wooden doors, and she was off like a shot. She rounded a corner--

\--and ran straight into Pinoe. Literally. Full speed ahead, spilled on the floor, limbs everywhere.

Kelley scrambled back upright, not even taking a tiny moment to slow down. "What happened, Pinoe? How did this--I don't know what happened, I just, I got a call saying Hope had been shot, is she... How bad is it? Where is she?" She was freaking out, probably, overreacting, but she couldn't help it. She turned and looked around, trying to figure out which door would lead her to Hope.

Pinoe grabbed her sleeve. "KO, hey, slow down. It's okay, she's fine. She's right here. Look, there's a window, you can see."

She had been directing them down the hallway as she spoke, and now they stopped in front of a polished wooden door. Kelley craned her neck to peer through the glass set in it, and then sagged against the wall as she breathed a sigh of relief. 

Hope was sitting cross-legged on a hospital bed, dressed in sweatpants and a tank top. Her back was to the door, but she was upright, and she was shifting restlessly, as if she couldn't see why she was being kept in the small room. There was a bandage wrapped around her upper left arm, but other than that she seemed fine.

Somehow, without meaning to, Kelley had taken a few steps forward until she was practically pressed against the door, hand involuntarily grasping the handle. She hesitated and glanced behind her, but Pinoe had taken a few steps back and was making all kinds of weird hand gestures that basically amounted to "Get in there." Some of the gestures looked like they would be considered inappropriate for a public location.

Kelley smiled a little, and then threw the door open and did.

***

Hope stared out the window of the blank, dreary room and tried to stop the boredom.

With each passing minute, this was increasingly harder to do. There was a rather interesting tree outside--or at least it had been interesting back when Hope first woke up. The parking lot beyond it was flat, sluggish, the pavement ugly and crumbling, the cars trapped in snares of stagnant immobility. The building across the road had a weathered front, drab gray paint peeling away from mottled concrete. There had been sparrows in the air that morning, but they had all flown to different haunts, and nothing stirred in the hazy blue sky--a haze that came drifting on the breeze, across the Cascades, in from the dry country.

Monday's rain had been too far west. The summer's fires were still burning.

The door was suddenly flung open behind her, and Hope barely had time to whirl around before Kelley was there, yanking her into a tight, desperate hug and kissing her as hard as she could. It was quite nice, comforting, calming, if unexpected and a little painful. For a moment, Hope almost forgot to wonder when Kelley had arrived. 

Then Kelley pulled back and glared at her.

"What the _hell_ were you thinking? You idiot, what right do you have to put me through this? I was worried sick, they said you'd been _shot_ , you _asshole_ \--"

"I'm fine, Kelley. No new holes, you see? The bullet just grazed me. The only reason I'm not back home yet is they were monitoring to make sure there were no negative consequences of hypothermia."

"Hypothermia?"

Well, shit. That was not the point she'd wanted Kelley to pick up on. "Um... yeah. Well, I kind of... fell in a river..."

"You fell in a river," Kelley stated flatly.

"It was really more of a stream--"

"You got shot and fell in a river. You know, when I told you to have fun while I was gone, this was not what I had in mind."

Hope grimaced. "It wasn't very fun at all."

Kelley sighed and then pulled Hope back into a hug, burying her face in the other woman's shoulder. "No, I suppose it wasn't."

They must have stayed like that for a while, finding comfort in each other's presence, because it seemed like it couldn't have been more than a minute before a nurse poked his head through the door. "Excuse me, ma'am, there's someone here to see you."

"What, am I not someone enough?" Kelley muttered under her breath, displeased at the interruption. However, she quieted when another woman appeared in the doorway, tall and business-like, with an official aura about her.

"Did you want something?" Hope asked.

The woman nodded. "Agent Nyeda Uchibo, FBI. Would you happen to have a moment to talk?" Her tone made it absolutely clear that Hope did in fact have a moment to talk.

"Yeah, come in."

Uchibo remained by the door, eyes fixed on Kelley. "A moment alone?" she prompted. Again, there was no room for debate in her voice.

Kelley glared and grumbled under her breath, but she reluctantly rose and exited the room. She made sure to shoulder the agent on her way out, and Hope stifled a laugh with her hand.

Uchibo walked over to the bedside, but ignored the chair Kelley had just vacated. Instead, she gave Hope a slight, distant smile and a nod of greeting.

"I heard you had quite the night on Monday," she said. A slight accent colored her words, faint hints of Boston carefully covered with neutrality.

Hope snorted. "That’s one way to put it."

"Is there a phrasing you would prefer?"

"Oh, I don't know, a violent shitstorm? A hellish murderscape? A nightmare of blood and terror? A dark and stormy night of death?" God, she loved sarcasm.

Uchibo chuckled. "All right, all right, I'll stop the dumb questions." She pulled a tablet out of out her briefcase and fiddled with it for a few seconds, then handed it to Hope. The screen was filled with two pictures, grainy photographs of faces that were all too familiar. 

"These are the men you saw?"

Hope swallowed and made herself look at the screen in front of her. "Yeah."

Uchibo nodded, her mouth set in a straight, grim line. "Robert Smith and James Taylor," she said. "They're hitmen, usually work together. They crop up every so often, but the problem is that they're really good. We don't have enough evidence to go after them. Or at least, we didn't." 

Hope crossed her arms, ignoring the pain that spiked through her left bicep. “And I’m gonna be your evidence?”

“We also have the bodies of the victims and several other items recovered from the scene,” Uchibo said, “but essentially, yes.”

“And what if I don’t want to testify?”

Uchibo sighed. “Then I have three things for you to consider. The first is that these killers are careful and clean. They rarely do anything without a plan and they don’t like to leave behind loose ends, so it’s hard to get an exact count, but we estimate that they have been responsible for at least fifty deaths, not counting the two last Monday. They are probably going to cause many more, considering that they get paid for each one. Should you testify, you will be helping catch these killers. In a sense, you will be saving lives. You would be a hero, and truthfully, your reputation could use that boost.

"Second, these men, these careful, clean assassins, are _killers_. They do not hesitate to murder for money, and they will not pause for an instant should they feel it necessary to kill to save their own skins. Before, there had never been such a danger to them--at least not a concrete one--but now there is you. You are a witness. You are a loose end. You are a threat. They will come whether you testify or not, and they will use any means necessary to silence you, including threats to those you care about.

"If you are still unconvinced, I have a third point. Would you like to hear it?"

Hope shifted warily. "Well, I'd like to hear it, but that doesn't mean I'm not convinced." 

Uchibo smiled thinly. "No, I suppose it doesn't." She took a deep breath. "The third point is that these men are wanted in other countries as well, countries that are a little less careful about the rights of witnesses and the ways they get their testimonies. And I'm not saying this would happen, but there is a possibility that someone might come looking for you if they felt we weren't doing enough to catch these guys. There's pressure out there to catch these killers, and some people will do... well, just about _anything_ when they're under pressure. Just because _I_  choose to go about this in a lawful manner does not guarantee that others will. And frankly, for a federal agent in my position, the phrase " _lawful manner_ " can be pretty damn flexible."

Hope frowned. "Am I hearing that right? Cause it sounds a whole lot like coercion and force to me." She fixed Uchibo with an angry glare.

Uchibo met her stare with a steady eye. "That is exactly what it sounds like."

What the fuck? "That's not... _legal_."

Uchibo shrugged. "Oh, it's not? I'm sorry, I didn't care." She returned the tablet to her briefcase and then perched on the chair beside the bed.

"Perhaps I've been too blunt about this," she admitted, still maintaining eye contact. "But I am tired, Mrs. Solo. These men keep killing, keep profiting off the deaths of others, and all our best laid plans are powerless to stop them. I have watched this pair of assassins slip through our fingers so many times, and live to kill another day. Now, a chance has presented itself to finally end this, and I will _not_ let it pass because some foolish coward refuses to present the damning evidence we need. _Do I make myself clear_?"

Hope hesitated. Part of her was angry that anyone would even try to threaten her like that, and another part was urging her to refuse just for the sake of being ornery and difficult. But for once, the sensible part of her spoke louder.

"Crystal clear," she said. "I would be most willing to give you my testimony about the events of last Monday."

Uchibo finally cracked a genuine smile. "Thank you, Solo. A wise choice indeed. It seems we will be able to work together." She nodded and stood to walk out of the room, and then turned back. "Oh, and by the way, I took the liberty of sending your car to a mechanic. I'll give the address to your friend. It should be fixed and ready for pick-up by noon Friday."

"Um, thank you?" Hope said weakly--but the agent was already gone.

 ***

Hope was released from the hospital later that day, about fifteen minutes after Carli showed up. The four of them piled into Pinoe's waiting car and ended up at Hope's house on its isolated road. Any other time, there would've been serious mischief and silly games and so much salt you could turn Lake Superior into the Even Greater Salt Lake. But somehow, none of them felt like joking around, not after what had happened. Instead, Hope filled her friends and girlfriend in on what she'd seen and what she'd learned. Then Pinoe left to drive back to her own house, while Hope got her houseguests situated.

(Well, more like she turned Carli loose in the guest room and blithely agreed when Kelley said Hope's own bed was definitely wide enough for two, but that didn't really matter.)

The next morning, Hope made sure to rise early and start making a good breakfast. It consisted of organic locally grown eggs (courtesy of her chickens), a few previously frozen croissants (because she had found them in her freezer), several pears (because they were ripe and juicy and healthy and full of fiber), and some bacon (because bacon, no other reason needed).

She got a call around noon asking her to come in to the Seattle police department so her statements could be processed. Both Kelley and Carli insisted on accompanying her, and one of them must have told Pinoe, because when they pulled up at the police station in Hope's other car, she was waiting in the parking lot. 

The station itself was a bit of a surreal experience. Hope couldn't help the way she turned and glanced around as they made their way through it. The last time she'd been there, it had felt a whole lot more restrictive and confined, to the point where her claustrophobia almost kicked in. Now, though, she didn't feel like she couldn't breathe in the narrow hallways. There was a different feeling about the place, now that she was here as a witness and not a defendant.

A deputy with short-cropped auburn hair and blue-grey eyes took her statement, taking careful notes as Hope recounted the grim events of the previous Monday. The deputy was kind but businesslike in her questions, letting Hope just talk at first and then going back through the story with a bit of a guiding touch. It didn't seem to take that long, but when Hope checked her phone near the end, over half an hour had gone by. The deputy asked a few closing questions and then thanked her, telling her that Agent Uchibo wanted to talk to her and ushering her out of the room.

The hallway outside the room was a little more crowded than it should have been. Carli was leaning on the wall, looking _extremely_ bored. Kelley was draped over a chair in what appeared to be a rather uncomfortable position. Pinoe had apparently shown up at some point and was now sitting on the floor. They all looked up as soon as Hope emerged.

Hope took a deep breath. "Okay, you guys might want to just, like, go somewhere else now. I think the FBI agent is gonna want to talk to me alone."

"All right," Pinoe said. "I saw a coffee shop next door, I'll be there." She started off down the hall at a swift walk. "Wonder if they'll have brownies..."

"Don't ruin your diet plan!" Kelley called out, and they all laughed as Pinoe flipped her off before vanishing around the corner.

Carli started to leave, too, but hesitated. "You sure about this?"

"Yeah, I can take care of myself."

"Recent events would suggest otherwise," Carli said, gesturing at the bandage on Hope's arm, but she still turned slowly and made her way back toward the front of the station. Then Hope turned to Kelley, and was met with a stone-faced look of resistance.

"You should go, too. I'm sorry," Hope said quietly, meeting her girlfriend's eyes as best she could.  

Kelley shook her head. "That agent's kicked me out once, and then she threatened you. I'm not gonna leave again."

"Kell..." Hope protested, but she could tell it was futile. Kelley was staying. 

It didn't take much effort to find Uchibo. She was leaning over a desk, deep in conversation with the redheaded deputy. When they entered, she looked up and then smiled. "Ah, Solo. O'Hara. Wonderful."

"Hey, she can't call me that, I never even introduced myself," Kelley whispered to Hope. 

Hope rolled her eyes. "You don't need permission to use someone's last name," she whispered back. 

Uchibo's smile took on a slight quirk. Damn, her ears were good. 

"Would you like to step in here for a moment?" she asked in her no arguments voice, gesturing toward a door set in a wall of windows. There were blinds on the windows, but they were up, and Hope could clearly see a conference room with a nice wooden table in the middle and suspiciously comfortable chairs around it. There was a whiteboard on one wall, a bulletin on another, and a flat panel display on the third. It seemed slightly mundane amid the whole aura of "law and order" that permeated the building.

They filed into the room and settled in around the table in the middle of the room. Hope automatically headed to the chair farthest from the door, with the best view of the hall outside. When she realized that was what she was doing, she halted and abruptly sat down in another chair. It was the chair Kelley had been aiming for, but instead of adjusting, Kelley simply sat on Hope's lap.

This prompted the first real laugh they'd heard from Uchibo. It was a strange sound--not exactly unpleasant, but just a little off, like it hadn't been used for too long. There was a sort of wistful quality to it, a faint hint of longing or regret.

The agent didn't give them long to dwell on it, though, pulling a laptop from her briefcase and hooking it up to the display on the wall. She pulled up a map that Hope recognized as the stretch of Route 18 she had been on Monday night. 

"All right," Uchibo said, "I want you to give me as detailed an account of your movements on the night of the incident as possible."

Hope frowned. "Couldn't you get that from my statement?"

"Unfortunately, you weren't quite clear enough in said statement. You will need to be clear and precise when you're called as a witness. Also, I'd like to hear it from you." She shrugged. "Humor me." 

Hope opened her mouth to respond, dubious about Uchibo's reasons. However, she was distracted by something outside the room. 

A man in blue scrubs had come hurtling around a corner, and practically skidded to a halt when he saw them through the glass. He hesitated, and then approached at a much slower pace, straightening papers in a manila folder as if to give his hands something to do. Probably some kind of doctor the police consulted with.

He knocked on the door and then opened it slightly. "Um, Agent Uchibo, we've finished with the autopsies," he said, sticking his head into the room. A pathologist, then, if he was doing autopsies.

Uchibo nodded, still distracted. "Well, what did you find?"

The pathologist shot a confused and slightly starstruck look at Hope and Kelley. "Are they... allowed..."

"Never mind them, just tell me what you've got," Uchibo said, fixing the poor man with an expectant stare. He squirmed a little, then went over to the computer and set his papers aside in favor of pulling up several photos on the screen. He straightened up, cleared his throat, and began.

"The deceased has been identified as Charles Lewis Vann. Male, biracial, 27 years old. Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to Gloria Johnson and Henry Vann--he appears to have been estranged from his parents, and we haven't been able to contact either of them. 

"Uhh, let's see... He graduated from Temple University in Philadelphia in 2010, top of his class, with a degree in computer science. After that, it seems he spent several years couch-surfing around the nation--kind of strange with that degree and all. But then in 2013 he was hired by a Portland-based hedge fund--we're trying to contact them now.

"But here's what we got from the autopsy. Cause of death was pretty obvious--severed jugular vein, rapid loss of blood--a bit of a strange method for a hit. But there's more, other stuff that really makes me wonder."

He paused and took a deep breath, then let it out in a whoosh without saying anything. Then he looked down at the paper and, voice trembling lightly, began to read.

"Lacerations on torso, both sides. Depth and cleanliness cut suggest a high quality blade, most likely a straight-bladed razor. Bruising along ribs and back, shaped like imprints of a boot. Cigarette burns across shoulders. More on arms and hands. Abrasions caused by rope around wrists and ankles..." he trailed off and then looked up. "See, that's not the kind of stuff that you see in a hit. That's angry. That's personal. That's not a money killing, that's revenge."

"It was both," Hope interjected, and then mentally punched herself in the face. She had wanted to sit back, stay as low-profile as possible, and then this was what she did? _Fucking idiot._

Now everyone was looking at her.

 _Shit_.

"Would you like to share with the class?" Uchibo said wryly.

 _Double-shit._  She nudged Kelley off her lap with an apologetic glance, and then stood and contemplated the pictures on the screen. "Well... what do you have on the other guy they killed?

After another firm glance from Uchibo, the pathologist coughed and pulled another packet to the top of his paper pile. "Um, that was Peter Helmer. 39, male, Caucasian. Kind of a leader in the Seattle area criminal underworld. Been tied to a major drug pushing operation, and there are rumors of sex trafficking as well. He was pulled in three years ago, but they couldn't pin anything on him but some traffic violations. Since then a whole lot more's come up against him, but he managed to stay away from the law, for a while.

"Cause of death: a bullet wound in the back of his skull. Due to the patterning of the exit wound in his forehead, he was most likely shot at point blank range. No other marks on the body. In other words, a lot more like what one would expect from a hit."

Hope frowned. "Okay, the second one was definitely a hit. But the first one, Vann, that one was weird. What's his name--Helmer? He was the one that killed Vann. Seemed to have a pretty deep grudge against him." She was maybe talking too fast, letting her words run together, but if she slowed down at all, she'd have to think about what she was saying, what she'd seen. "Helmer killed Vann, and then he and Smith and Taylor were joking around about it--it sounded like they'd been contracted to kill Vann, too, but were letting him do it, or at least that's what he thought."

And there she stopped. Her words hit a brick wall at fifty miles per hour, scattering off their tracks and lying around on the hard tiled floor. She shivered, cold under the fluorescent lights, wrapping her arms around herself. 

"And?" Uchibo prompted. "What happened next?"

The words were backing away frantically, begging to be let alone, but she somehow managed to get them out. "So Helmer killed Vann, and they were all laughing about it. They were making bad jokes and acting all happy and stuff and Helmer wasn't watching his back and Smith shot him." The last part was said in a desperate rush, slurring together as her throat closed up.

Then Kelley was there, folding her into a gentle hug, and Hope dropped her head to her girlfriend's shoulder, trying to get her ragged breathing under control. Her hands were shaking, and she clenched them tightly in the front pocket of Kelley's hoodie. She closed her eyes and let herself be guided toward one of the chairs. 

It was really starting to hit, now. She had names to match the memories, and it was finally sinking in that the people she had watched die had been real people. Helmer might have had a mother who worried about what her son was doing with his life and prayed that he would straighten himself out a little. Maybe Vann had been saving money from that job at the hedge fund to buy a house or send his family a gift or something. They were people. They had been people.

And she'd watched them die.

Then the door flew open and Carli's voice was there, a frantic "What happened?"echoing in the ringing air. The sound of an argument rising in the background--her friend's voice rising angrily, pitted against Uchibo's ever-cool one. Heavy silence in the air about her--choking the raised voices--pressing down on her shoulders, cutting off her air. A hand--Kelley's--rubbing gentle circles against her back, and Hope squeezed her eyes tighter and blocked out everything else. 

Eventually, when her breathing had evened out and she felt a bit more like herself again, she raised her head from Kelley's shoulder, took a deep breath, and looked around. Carli was slouched in the chair next to her and Kelley, feet on the table and a frown fixed on her face. The door was open and Pinoe was leaning awkwardly through it, looking like she had no idea what was going on. At some point, the pathologist had left, and someone had shut the blinds--probably Uchibo, since she was closest to them. The flat-panel display had been turned off, the laptop closed, the file removed from the tabletop. 

Out of sight, out of mind, she told herself, and tried to focus solidly on the now.

Uchibo broke the silence. "Do you think we will be able to continue at this time?" she said, leaning forward in her chair. "If you feel it would be too much, that is fine, but there is a definite urgency to this whole matter." She paused, and then admitted, "We still have no idea where Taylor and Smith are."

"Then let's focus on them," Hope said. That was something she thought she could do. 

Uchibo nodded. "In that case, we will start with names." She opened the laptop back up and began typing while she talked. "According to 2010 census data, Smith is the most common last name in the United States, while Taylor is the tenth most common. James is the most common first name for American males, and Robert the fifth most common. There must be thousands of James Taylors and Robert Smiths in this country.

"Now imagine you're someone who makes a living through illegal activity. You've got the underworld job with the worst punishment if you're caught--but very high returns if you manage to stay at large. Would you keep your birth name? Obviously not. It could be used against you. It might be memorable or unique, which are things you don't want to be. So you get rid of it.

"But you've got to have some kind of name, or at the very least an alias picked out, or you wont be able to pass in the regular world. So you pick a new one to use, and you make sure it's not memorable or unique. You make it as common as you can without being suspicious. John Smith sounds a bit too cliche, too common. But Robert Smith? Just another guy."

"So these hitmen--you don't know their real names?" Kelley asked.

Uchibo nodded. "We've got a few good guesses for Smith--facial recognition technology does wonders. But we're still in the dark about Taylor."

Hope frowned. "But is that necessary? Like, you can still catch them if you don't know that, right?"

"We don't need their names to catch them, but it might be useful in figuring out how they work. There's another component, though, another name that tells us a little more.

"You see, ultimately a hitman is still an outside contractor. They have to be able to market themselves. And while a name like Robert Smith and James Taylor is good for going unnoticed, it's not really marketable. So hitmen usually have another name they use on the business end of things. For Taylor and Smith, that name is rather telling in the sense that they only have one between them.

"They call themselves the Gemini."

Pinoe sucked in a breath. "Are they twins?"

"No," Hope answered, "they can't have been. I got a good look at them both and there's no way they're related."

"They're not," Uchibo said. "But they might as well be, the way they stick together. Haven't ever caught a whiff of one of them without the other right behind. So we know they've got a solid working relationship--they rely on each other. They wouldn't stick together for six years if they didn't have a damn good reason."

"Wait," Carli cut in. "Is this stuff supposed to be secret or anything? Cause, like, I don’t get why you're okay with telling us all this."

Uchibo sighed and dragged a hand through her dark, bushy hair. She had been maintaining a distanced professionalism throughout the talk, but now she dropped it, looking utterly exhausted. "Well, frankly, the Seattle Times has already got the story, published it online, and I think KOMO’s drooling over the sweet details they’re gonna broadcast soon. It’s not just Seattle, though--news outlets all over the northwest are scrambling to get this. They know it’s going to be a hit. You’ve got your dark thrilling stuff, the blood and gore, and you’ve got a pair of elusive hitmen, and right smack-dab in the middle you’ve got a controversial public figure." She waved a hand in Hope’s direction. "Someone who some people see as a hero, but who others regard as--sorry--trash.

"It’s the perfect cocktail for a great story. The public, the readers, the viewers--they’re going to be lapping this one up, and the stations know that. Hell, it’s going to be in _national_ newspapers, big ones--New York Times, Washington Post. Could be covered on FOX. It’s definitely going to be on CNN, but that’s not saying very much.

"But anyway, in conclusion, it doesn't really matter if you all hear this, because the public will know most of it very soon, if not already. Also, I have learned from personal experience that if someone is directly threatened, one can ensure their safety more effectively when they are informed."

Carli nodded, looking slightly impressed by Uchibo's answer. "Okay, yeah, that makes sense. Wasn't thinking of it that way, but now I see what you mean."

But something about what Uchibo had said was bothering Hope. "Wait... if the news is reporting all this, then doesn't that mean Smith and Taylor now know all the info that's out there? They're obviously going to be checking what's being said about this."

Uchibo grimaced and sighed. "Unfortunately, it does mean that--but that's the price people pay for transparency in the justice system. Of course, they don't know all of it--not the background information, or much about who the hitmen are, but enough has been leaked that it'll probably hinder us. Look it up, you'll see what I mean. A whole lot of it is speculation, but not all and not enough."

She took a deep breath, as if about to say more, but a buzzing sound started coming from her pocket. She frowned and pulled out a phone, glanced at the screen, and said, "Sorry, I’ve got to take this--would you mind waiting here?" Her face was composed, but there was a smile hiding behind her eyes. 

"Go ahead," Hope said, waving a hand that had finally stopped shaking. Uchibo nodded gratefully, and stepped out of the room.

"Ooh, did you see that?" Kelley exclaimed. "I bet our big, bad FBI agent is in lo-ove!"

"Got a sweetheart on the other side of the country!" Pinoe added in a singsong voice. 

"Probably married, judging by her age," Carli threw in with a smirk. 

Hope groaned. "God, you three have no eyes. For fuck's sake, she's wearing a ring!"

"And you noticed that why?" Kelley said, mock-accusing.

"Fuck off, I wasn't checking Mrs. FBI Agent out."

"And thank god for that," Carli muttered. "She seems like a bit of an asshole."

"Aren't we all, though?" Pinoe quipped. 

That drew a small laugh from everyone. Then they lapsed into silence briefly, but it didn't last. Silence wasn't really an option when there were people like Kelley and Pinoe in the room, and so within five minutes there was a very competitive (and inappropriate) game of hangman going on. 

Competitive and inappropriate were words that described them very well, Hope decided. Then she shrugged at herself and immersed herself in the game in an effort to switch off the part of her brain that insisted on worrying.

About half an hour had passed when the door opened slightly. A deputy, one they hadn't seen before, poked his head in. "Um, hello," he said awkwardly.

Carli looked up. "Yes?"

"Um, I was asked to tell you guys that we just managed to get in touch with Vann's employer. They gave us his forms."

Now it was Kelley's turn to prompt a continuation. "And?"

"Well, he had a rather interesting emergency contact listed."

That got everyone's attention. Even Hope was watching, unsure whether she should be dreading an answer or not. Interesting wasn't always a bad thing, right?

"Who was it?" she asked.

The poor deputy hesitated, looking entirely too nervous for 'interesting' to be a good thing. Suddenly, Hope didn't want to hear the answer. Why tell them? Why was the guy so nervous about this? And where had they said Vann was from again? Pittsburgh?

Wait. No. It couldn't be...

The deputy stared down at the cold, tiled floor as he said, "Charles Vann's emergency contact was listed as one Meghan Klingenberg."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, Nyeda. I love me some morally ambiguous characters... which is probably why this fic has so many.
> 
> Also, since I foolishly decided to make these chapters really long, updates will probably be rather slow. Hopefully now that finals are over I'll be able to pick the pace up somewhat. Sorry about that.


End file.
